The Weekly Reload Podcast

Cam Edwards of Bearing Arms joins the show this week after the ATF saw a significant shakeup. After President Biden announced he would nominate a new permanent director last week, he took to punishing the acting director. Marvin Richardson, a 30-year career agent, was moved down to acting deputy director for the last few months of his time at the agency. The move comes just a month after gun-contr...

President Biden went hard after "ghost guns" and the companies that make them this week. So, on this episode, we've got one of the most prominent men who is squarely in his sights: Defense Distributed's Cody Wilson. Wilson is a pioneer in 3D-printed guns having developed the first prototype called The Liberator. His Ghost Gunner mini-CNC machine is among the popular ways to finish the unfinished g...

Author and Washington Post Columnist Radley Balko joins the show this week to talk about how police militarization impacts gun rights. Balko has spent a career documenting questionable police tactics, and he provides some unique insight into the Amir Locke case. Minneapolis Police killed Locke during a no-knock raid in February because he reached for a gun during the confusion caused by his apartm...

Florida is going to have a special session where Governor Ron DeSantis (R.) says he hopes permitless gun-carry is added to the agenda. So, who better to bring on the show to discuss this news than Florida Man Charles Cooke? The National Review senior writer joined the podcast to give some insight into the state of the proposal. He said it will likely be an uphill battle to get the policy through t...

Nationally-syndicated radio host and author Erick Erickson joins the show this week to talk about the Georgia election, NRA, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Erickson, who lives in Georgia, has closely followed the gubernatorial election. The Republican primary has been particularly heated this year with former-president Donald Trump enticing former-senator David Purdue to run against incumbent Brian Ke...

Rhode Island's statewide stun-gun ban was overturned by a federal court this week. It was the last of its kind, and the latest to fall in what's becoming a systemic dismantling of the prohibitions across the country. The effort to liberalize stun gun and taser laws wasn't undertaken by any of the major gun-rights groups or civil-rights organizations. It hasn't been backed by anyone with deep pocke...

We're doing something different this week. Instead of interviewing an expert on a single topic, we're letting Reload members interview us on a bunch of different topics. It's our first Q&A episode! Contributing Writer Jake Fogleman and I answer questions on a wide range of stories. What is going on with gun laws and armed civilians in Ukraine? How could it affect American gun politics? How muc...

The NRA will not be forced to close down due to the New York Attorney General's corruption suit. However, the case remains active. So, former NRA board member Rocky Marshall joined the show this week to discuss the internal fight over the corruption allegations against NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and other members of leadership. Marshall is one of the few board members to publicly...

War continues to rage in Ukraine as Russia attempts to capture cities across the nation despite fierce resistance. Part of that resistance has been made up of civilian volunteers who've gained new protections for their right to armed defense and been given guns by the military. Anthony Constantini, who received a master's degree in arms control and strategic studies from St. Petersburg State Unive...

Insurers for the defunct Remington Outdoor Company paid out a $73 million settlement to families of the Sandy Hook victims. It was the first time any gun company, even a bankrupt and dismantled one, has ever paid money to plaintiffs who claimed they were at least partially responsible for the criminal acts of a third party. It's an unprecedented situation that raises a ton of questions. That's why...

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R.) joined the podcast this week to discuss his approach to gun policy and why he thinks gun owners should vote for him. We started off by discussing his background with guns. He talked about how he got into hunting and how members of his family have become concealed carriers themselves. Kemp also explained getting permitless gun-carry passed this year is his top prior...

On this week's episode, we drill down into the details of the internal financial document The Reload obtained from an NRA source. Ohio State University Accounting Professor Brian Mittendorf joins the show to give insight into what the document says and what the massive drops in revenue and membership reveal about the future of the country's most influential gun group. He says the NRA has actually...

Cody Wilson joins the show this week. He is the founder of Defense Distributed and one of the main innovators in homemade guns. His Liberator 3D-printed gun brought him to prominence years ago and he's continued to push the boundaries of what's possible in simplified gun-making with increasingly-common technology. In fact, he and his company have even focused on making some of that technology more...

SHOT Show is back after being canceled last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. I was able to attend the show and so was this week's guest Gabby Hoffman. Gabby has been one of the top outdoor writers in the country for quite some time. She also hosts the District of Conservation Podcast where I've been a guest several times. Gabby and I compare how attendance at this year's show stacks up to yea...

On this episode, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project Matt Stoller joins the show to talk about the ongoing ammo shortage and the resulting price hikes we've all been experiencing lately. Stoller recently wrote a widely-circulated piece on his Substack arguing the market dominance of Vista Outdoors and Olin Corporation contribute to the supply problems and price hikes. T...

One of the persistent debates in American gun politics is over AR-15s and other "assault weapons." Policy around ARs has stagnated since the federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004. However, gun-control advocates have begun to expand proposals into outright confiscation, with Beto O'Rourke being among the most prominent. Now, our neighbors to the north are testing out these expanded proposals...

One of my favorite YouTubers joins me on this week's episode of the podcast. Ian McCollum has built Forgotten Weapons into the premier firearms history publication. His videos documenting some of the world's rarest and most interesting firearms have been viewed nearly a billion times. His depth of knowledge on guns dating to the early 19th century is unrivaled and his ability to explain the unique...

On this special Christmas edition of the podcast, Guns Out TV co-host Shermichael Singleton joins me to talk about how his show exemplifies how the gun world is changing. He and his co-host John Keyes are black gun owners and Shermichael explains how they consciously work to represent the proud tradition of black gun ownership in America. He talks about how icons from previous generations, includi...

Ryan Busse joins the show this week to talk about his transformation from Kimber sales executive to Giffords senior advisor. Busse spent decades in the firearms industry but left last year and has now published a tell-all book slamming his former employer, Kimber, and many former colleagues. Kimber has since denounced him, and many I've spoken to in the gun-rights movement have questioned how impo...

On this episode, I talk to Northern Illinois University College of Law professor Evan Bernick about the unprecedented charges against the parents of the 15-year-old who allegedly murdered 4 of his classmates in Michigan late last month. We discuss his recent piece in The Washington Post warning of the dangers of the case. Bernick is skeptical of the logic being employed by prosecutors to charge th...

The Heritage Foundation's Amy Swearer joins us this week on the podcast. As a Second Amendment policy wonk at one of the top conservative think tanks in D.C., she provides some salient critiques of the logic behind many of the most prominent gun-control policies. We talked about the reasoning in the Ninth Circuit's majority opinion upholding California's magazine confiscation law as an example of...

This week we're doing a special early episode of the podcast. The Dispatch's David French joins the show to discuss his reaction to the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict. David has been at the center of controversy for the past several years for his staunch criticism of former President Donald Trump. Now, he's generated more criticism for his opinion on the Rittenhouse case. We discuss the details of the c...

This week, I'm joined by gun lawyer John Monroe to discuss Kyle Rittenhouse successfully claiming self-defense during his murder trial. Monroe practices gun law in Wisconsin. He has argued similar cases in the past and is even appearing before the state's supreme court soon. His experience gives him specialized insight into the case against Rittenhouse and why the jury came down on his side. We di...

Kenny Robertson of Wex Training Group joins me this week to talk about a new emergency medical training program aimed at concealed carriers. Robertson spent 22 years in the Army Green Berets as part of the 5th Special Forces Group. He served in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syrian, and Lebanon as a medic. After that, he spent years training others to do the same thing as director of the Tactical Casualty Com...

On this episode, investigative reporter Tim Mak joins me to talk about his new book Misfire: Inside the Downfall of the NRA. I first met Tim at the 2019 NRA annual meeting where he was one of the only other reporters in the room when dissident members tried to oust CEO Wayne LaPierre over allegations of corruption. He has been at the forefront of covering the NRA for the last several years and pro...